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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.._ __ Copyright No.. 



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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 




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SIR ROGER 
"CoVer/ey: 




Jo^rep/i 



JSew York^^ "Boston. 



Library of Congr®«s 

Iwo Copies Received 
SEP 6 1900 

C«pynght entry 

SECOND eery, 

Oflivefsd to 

OHOt« DIVISION, 

S EP 18 1900 



Copyrls^ht, igoo 
By H. M. Caldwell Co. 

6D949 



Sir Roger de Coverley 



Preface ^ 

afterwards. He continues to wear a coat 
and doublet of the same cut, that were in 
fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in 
his merry humours, he tells us, has been 
in and out twelve times since he first wore it. 
He is now in his fifty-sixth year, ch earful.. 
gay, and hearty ; keeps a good house both 
in town and country ; a great lover of man- 
kind ; but there is such a mirthful cast in 
his behaviour, that he is rather beloved than 
esteemed. His tenants grow rich, his ser- 
vants look satisfied, all the young women 
profess love to him, and the young men are 
glad of his company ; when he comes into 
a house, he calls the servants by their 
names, and talks all the way up stairs to a 
visit. I must not omit, that Sir Roger is 
a justice of the quorum ; that he fills the 
chair at a quarter-session with great abili- 
ties, and three months ago, gained universal 
applause, by explaining a passage in the 
game-act. 



Contents 



Preface 


I 


Sir Roger at Home . 


5 


Sir Roger and Will. Wimble . 


15 


Sir Roger at Church . 


24 


Sir Roger and the Witches 


33 


Sir Roger at the Assizes . 


43 


Sir Roger and the Gipsies 


54 


Sir Roger in Town . 


64 


Sir Roger in Westminster Abbey 


74 


Sir Roger at the Play 


85 


Sir Roger at Vauxhall 


96 



Sir Roger de Coverley 

CHAPTER I. 

SIR ROGER AT HOME 

TITAVING often received an invita- 
tion from my friend Sir Roger de 
Coverley to pass away a month with 
him in the country, I last week accom- 
panied him thither, and am settled with 
him for some time at his country- 
house, where I intend to form several 
of my ensuing speculations. Sir Roger, 
who is very well acquainted with my 
5 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

humour, lets me rise and go to bed 
when I please ; dine at his own table, 
or in my chamber, as I think fit ; sit 
still, and say nothing, without bidding 
me be merry. When the gentlemen 
of the country come to see him, he 
only shows me at a distance. As I 
have been walking in the fields, I have 
observed them stealing a sight of me 
over an hedge, and have heard the 
knight desiring them not to let me see 
them, for that I hated to be stared at. 

I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's 
family, because it consists of sober and 
staid persons ; for as the knight is 
the best master in the world, he seldom 
changes his servants ; and as he is 
beloved by all about him, his servants 
never care for leaving him : by this 
means his domestics are all in years, 
6 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

and grown old with their master. You 
would take his valet de chambre for his 
brother ; his butler is gray-headed ; his 
groom is one of the gravest men that 
I have ever seen ; and his coachman 
has the looks of a privy-councillor. 
You see the goodness of the master 
even in the old house-dog ; and in a 
gray pad, that is kept in the stable with 
great care and tenderness out of regard 
to his past services, though he has been 
useless for several years. 

I could not but observe, with a great 
deal of pleasure, the joy that appeared 
in the countenances of these ancient 
domestics upon my friend's arrival at 
his country-seat. Some of them could 
not refrain from tears at the sight of 
their old master ; every one of them 
pressed forward to do something for 
7 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

him, and seemed discouraged if they 
were not employed. At the same time 
the good old knight, with a mixture of 
the father and the master of the family, 
tempered the inquiries after his own 
affairs with several kind questions re- 
lating to themselves. This humanity 
and good nature engages everybody to 
him, so that when he is pleasant upon 
any of them, all his family are in good 
humour, and none so much as the per- 
son whom he diverts himself with : on 
the contrary, if he coughs, or betrays 
any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a 
stander-by to observe a secret concern 
in the looks of all his servants. 

My worthy friend has put me under 
the particular care of his butler, who is 
a very prudent man, and, as well as the 
rest of his fellow servants, wonderfully 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

desirous of pleasing me, because they 
have often heard their master talk of 
me as of his particular friend. 

My chief companion, when Sir Roger 
is diverting himself in the woods or the 
fields, is a very venerable man who is 
ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at 
his house in the nature of a chaplain 
above thirty years. This gentleman is 
a person of good sense, and some learn- 
ing, of a very regular life, and obliging 
conversation : he heartily loves Sir 
Roger, and knows that he is very 
much in the old knight's esteem ; so 
that he lives in the family rather as a 
relation than a dependant. 

I have observed in several of my 
papers that my friend Sir Roger, 
amidst all his good qualities, is some- 
thing of an humourist ; and that his 
9 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

virtues, as well as imperfections, are, 
as it were, tinged by a certain extrava- 
gance, which makes them particularly 
his, and distinguishes them from those 
of other men. This cast of mind, 
as it is generally very innocent in it- 
self, so it renders his conversation 
highly agreeable, and more delightful 
than the same degree of sense and 
virtue would appear in their common 
and ordinary colours. As I was walk- 
ing with him last night, he asked me 
how I liked the good man whom I 
have just now mentioned; and, with- 
out staying for my answer, told me 
that he was afraid of being insulted 
with Latin and Greek at his own 
table ; for which reason, he desired 
a particular friend of his at the Uni- 
versity to find him out a clergyman 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

rather of plain sense than much learn- 
ing, of a good aspect, a clear voice, 
a sociable temper, and, if possible, a 
man that understood a little of back- 
gammon. My friend (says Sir Roger) 
found me out this gentleman, who, 
besides the endowments required of 
him, is, they tell me, a good scholar, 
though he does not show it. I have 
given him the parsonage of the parish ; 
and, because I know his value, have 
settled upon him a good annuity for 
life. If he outlives me, he shall find 
that he was higher in my esteem than 
perhaps he thinks he is. He has now 
been with me thirty years ; and, though 
he does not know I have taken notice 
of it, has never in all that time asked 
anything of me for himself, though 
he is every day soliciting me for some- 



■^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

thing in behalf of one or other of my 
tenants, his parishioners. There has 
not been a lawsuit in the parish since 
he has lived among them ; if any dis- 
pute arises they apply themselves to him 
for the decision ; if they do not ac- 
quiesce in his judgment, vi^hich I think 
never happened above once, or twice 
at most, they appeal to me. At his 
first settling with me, I made him a 
present of all the good sermons which 
have been printed in English, and only 
begged of him that every Sunday he 
would pronounce one of them in the 
pulpit. Accordingly, he has digested 
them into such a series that they 
follow one another naturally, and 
make a continued system of practical 
divinity. 

As Sir Roger was going on in his 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

story, the gentleman we were talking 
of came up to us ; and upon the 
knight's asking him who preached to- 
morrow (for it was Saturday night), 
told us, the Bishop of St. Asaph in 
the morning, and Doctor South in the 
afternoon. He then showed us his 
list of preachers for the whole year, 
where I saw with a great deal of 
pleasure. Archbishop Tillotson, Bishop 
Saunderson, Doctor Barrow, Doctor 
Calamy, with several living authors 
who have published discourses of 
practical divinity. I no sooner saw 
this venerable man in the pulpit, but I 
very much approved of my friend's 
insisting upon the qualification of a 
good aspect and a clear voice ; for 
I was so charmed with the gracefulness 
of his figure and delivery, as well as 
13 



■^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

the discourses he pronounced, that I 
think I never passed any time more 
to my satisfaction. A sermon repeated 
after this manner is like the compo- 
sition of a poet in the mouth of a 
graceful actor. 

I could heartily wish that more of 
our country clergy would follow this 
example, and, instead of wasting their 
spirits in laborious compositions of 
their own, would endeavour after a 
handsome elocution, and all those other 
talents that are proper to enforce what 
has been penned by greater masters. 
This would not only be more easy 
to themselves, but more edifying to 
the people. 



14 



Sir Roger de Coverley 



CHAPTER II. 

SIR ROGER AND WILL. WIMBLE 

/i S I was yesterday morning walking 
with Sir Roger before his house, 
a country fellow brought him a huge 
fish, which, he told him, Mr. William 
Wimble had caught that very morning ; 
and that he presented it with his ser- 
vice to him, and intended to come and 
dine with him. At the same time he 
delivered a letter, which my friend 
read to me as soon as the messenger 
left him. 

" Sir Roger : — I desire you to accept 
of a Jack, which is the best I have caught 
15 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

this season. I intend to come and stay with 
you a week, and see how the Perch bite in 
the Black river. I observed with some 
concern, the last time I saw you upon the 
Bowling-green, that your whip wanted a lash 
to it : I will bring half a dozen with me that 
I twisted last week, which I hope will serve 
you all the time you are in the country. I 
have not been out of the saddle for six days 
last past, having been at Eaton with Sir 
John's eldest son. He takes to his learning 
hugely. 

" I am, Sir, your humble Servant, 

" Will. Wimble." 

This extraordinary letter, and mes- 
sage that accompanied it, made me 
very curious to know the character 
and quality of the gentleman who 
sent them ; which I found to be as 
follows. Will. Wimble is younger 
brother to a baronet, and descended 
i6 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

of the ancient family of the Wimbles. 
He is now between forty and fifty ; 
but being bred to no business, and 
born to no estate, he generally lives 
with his elder brother as superintend- 
ent of his game. He hunts a pack 
of dogs better than any man in the 
country, and is very famous for find- 
ing out a hare. He is extremely well 
versed in all the little handicrafts of 
an idle man : he makes a May-fly to 
a miracle; and furnishes the whole 
country with angle-rods. As he is 
a good-natured, officious fellow, and 
very much esteemed upon account of 
his family, he is a welcome guest at 
every house, and keeps up a good 
correspondence among all the gentle- 
men about him. He carries a tulip- 
root in his pocket from one to another, 
17 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

or exchanges a puppy between a couple 
of friends that live perhaps in the op- 
posite sides of the county. Will, is 
a particular favourite of all the young 
heirs, whom he frequently obliges with 
a net that he has weaved, or a setting- 
dog that he has /nade himself; he now 
and then presents a pair of garters 
of his own knitting to their mothers 
or sisters ; and raises a great deal of 
mirth among them, by inquiring, as 
often as he meets them, " how they 
wear ? " These gentleman-like manu- 
factures and obliging little humours 
make Will, the darling of the coun- 

try. 

Sir Roger was proceeding in the 

character of him, when he saw him 

make up to us with two or three 

hazel-twigs in his hand, that he had 

i8 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 



cut in Sir Roger's woods, as he came 
through them in his way to the house. 
I was very much pleased to observe on 
one side the hearty and sincere wel- 
come with which Sir Roger received 
him, and, on the other, the secret joy 
which his guest discovered at sight of 
the good old knight. After the first 
salutes were over. Will, desired Sir 
Roger to lend him one of his servants 
to carry a set of shuttlecocks, he had 
with him in a little box, to a lady that 
lived about a mile ofF, to whom it 
seems he had promised such a present 
for above this half-year. Sir Roger's 
back was no sooner turned, but honest 
Will, began to tell me of a large cock 
pheasant that he had sprung in one of 
the neighbouring woods, with two or 
three other adventures of the same 
19 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

nature. Odd and uncommon charac- 
ters are the game that I look for, and 
most delight in ; for which reason I 
was as much pleased with the novelty 
of the person that talked to me, as he 
could be for his life with the springing 
of a pheasant, and therefore listened to 
him with more than ordinary attention. 
In the midst of his discourse the 
bell rung to dinner, where the gentle- 
man I have been speaking of had the 
pleasure of seeing the huge Jack he 
had caught served up for the first dish 
in a most sumptuous manner. Upon 
our sitting down to it, he gave us a 
long account how he had hooked it, 
played with it, foiled it, and at length 
drew it out upon the bank, with several 
other particulars, that lasted all the 
first course. A dish of wild fowl, that 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

came afterward, furnished conversation 
for the rest of the dinner, which con- 
cluded with a late invention of Will.'s 
for improving the quail-pipe. 

Upon withdrawing into my room 
after dinner, I was secretly touched 
with compassion toward the honest 
gentleman that had dined with us ; 
and could not but consider, with a 
great deal of concern, how so good 
an heart, and such busy hands, were 
wholly employed in trifles ; that so 
much humanity should be so little 
beneficial to others, and so much in- 
dustry so little advantageous to him- 
self. The same temper of mind, and 
application to affairs, might have recom- 
mended him to the public esteem, and 
have raised his fortune in another station 
of life. What good to his country, or 

21 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

himself, might not a trader or merchant 
have done with such useful, though 
ordinary, qualifications ? 

Will. Wimble's is the case of many 
a younger brother of a great family, 
who had rather see their children 
starve like gentlemen, than thrive in 
a trade or profession that is beneath 
their quality. This humour fills sev- 
eral parts of Europe with pride and 
beggary. It is the happiness of a 
trading nation, like ours, that the 
younger sons, though incapable of any 
liberal art or profession, may be placed 
in such a way of life as may perhaps 
enable them to vie with the best of 
their family : accordingly, we find sev- 
eral citizens, that were launched into 
the world with narrow fortunes, rising 
by an honest industry to greater estates 

22 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

than those of their elder brothers. It 
is not improbable but Will, was for- 
merly tried at divinity, law, or physic ; 
and that finding his genius did not lie 
that way, his parents gave him up at 
length to his own inventions. But 
certainly, however improper he might 
have been for studies of a higher 
nature, he was perfectly well turned 
for the occupations of trade and com- 
merce. 



23 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 



CHAPTER III. 

SIR ROGER AT CHURCH 

T AM always very well pleased with 
a country Sunday ; and think, if 
keeping holy the seventh day were 
only a human institution, it would be 
the best method that could have been 
thought of for the polishing and civil- 
ising of mankind. It is certain the 
country people would soon degenerate 
into a kind of savages and barbarians, 
were there not such frequent returns 
of a stated time, in which the whole 
village meet together with their best 
faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to 
24 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

converse with one another upon indif- 
ferent subjects, hear their duties ex- 
plained to them, and join together in 
adoration of the Supreme Being. Sun- 
day clears away the rust of the whole 
week, not only as it refreshes in their 
minds the notions of religion, but as 
it puts both the sexes upon appearing 
in their most agreeable forms, and ex- 
erting all such qualities as are apt to 
give them a figure in the eye of the 
village. A country fellow distinguishes 
himself as much in the churchyard as 
a citizen does upon the Change, the 
whole parish politics being generally 
discussed in that place either after 
sermon or before the bell rings. 

My friend Sir Roger, being a good 
churchman, has beautified the inside 
of his church with several texts of his 
25 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

own choosing ; he has likewise given 
a handsome pulpit-cloth, and railed in 
the communion-table at his own ex- 
pense. He has often told me that at 
his coming to his estate he found his 
parishioners very irregular ; and that in 
order to make them kneel and join in 
the responses, he gave every one of 
them a hassock and a Common Prayer 
Book ; and at the same time em- 
ployed an itinerant singing-master, 
who goes about the country for that 
purpose, to instruct them rightly in 
the tunes of the psalms ; upon which 
they now very much value them- 
selves ; and indeed outdo most of 
the country churches that I have ever 
heard. 

As Sir Roger is landlord to the 
whole congregation, he keeps them 
26 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

in very good order, and will suffer 
nobody to sleep in it besides him- 
self j for if by chance he has been 
surprised into a short nap at sermon, 
upon recovering out of it he stands up 
and looks about him, and if he sees 
anybody else nodding, either wakes 
them himself, or sends his servant 
to them. Several other of the old 
knight's particularities break out upon 
these occasions : sometimes he will be 
lengthening out a verse in the singing- 
psalms half a minute after the rest of 
the congregation have done with it ; 
sometimes, when he is pleased with 
the matter of his devotion, he pro- 
nounces Amen three or four times to 
the same prayer ; and sometimes stands 
up, when everybody else is upon their 
knees, to count the congregation, or 
27 



■^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

see if any of his tenants are miss- 
ing. 

I was yesterday very much surprised 
to hear my old friend, in the midst of 
the service, calling out to one John 
Matthews to mind what he was 
about, and not disturb the congrega- 
tion. This John Matthews, it seems, 
is remarkable for being an idle fellow, 
and at that time was kicking his heels 
for his diversion. This authority of 
the knight, though exerted in that odd 
manner which accompanies him in all 
circumstances of life, has a very good 
effect upon the parish, who are not 
polite enough to see anything ridiculous 
in his behaviour; besides that, the gen- 
eral good sense and worthiness of his 
character make his friends observe these 
little singularities as foils that rather 
28 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

set ofF than blemish his good quali- 
ties. 

As soon as the sermon is finished, 
nobody presumes to stir till Sir Roger 
is gone out of the church. The knight 
walks down from his seat in the chan- 
cel between a double row of his ten- 
ants, that stand bowing to him on each 
side ; and every now and then he in- 
quires how such an one's wife, or 
mother, or son, or father do, whom 
he does not see at church ; which is 
understood as a secret reprimand to 
the person that is absent. 

The chaplain has often told me 
that upon a catechising-day, when Sir 
Roger has been pleased with a boy 
that answers well, he has ordered a 
Bible to be given him next day for 
his encouragement ; and sometimes ac- 
29 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

companies it with a flitch of bacon 
to his mother. Sir Roger has likewise 
added five pounds a year to the clerk's 
place ; and that he may encourage the 
young fellows to make themselves per- 
fect in the church-service, has promised, 
upon the death of the present incum- 
bent, who is very old, to bestow it 
according to merit. 

The fair understanding between Sir 
Roger and his chaplain, and their mutual 
concurrence in doing good, is the more 
remarkable, because the very next vil- 
lage is famous for the differences and 
contentions that rise between the par- 
son and the 'squire, who live in a per- 
petual state of war. The parson is 
always at the 'squire, and the 'squire, 
to be revenged on the parson, never 
comes to church. The 'squire has 
30 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

made all his tenants atheists and tithe- 
stealers ; while the parson instructs 
them every Sunday in the dignity of 
his order, and insinuates to them, al- 
most in every sermon, that he is a 
better man than his patron. In short, 
matters are come to such an extremity 
that the 'squire has not said his prayers 
either in public or private this half 
year; and that the parson threatens 
him, if he does not mend his manners, 
to pray for him in the face of the 
w^hole congregation. 

Feuds of this nature, though too 
frequent in the country, are very fatal 
to the ordinary people ; w^ho are so 
used to be dazzled with riches that 
they pay as much deference to the 
understanding of a man of an estate, 
as of a man of learning ; and are very 
31 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

hardly brought to regard any truth, 
how important soever it may be, that 
is preached to them, when they know 
there are several men of five hundred 
a year who do not believe it. 



32 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

SIR ROGER AND THE WITCHES 

nr^HERE are some opinions in which 
a man should stand neuter, with- 
out engaging his assent to one side or 
the other. Such a hovering faith as 
this, which refuses to settle upon any 
determination, is absolutely necessary 
in a mind that is careful to avoid 
errors and prepossessions. When the 
arguments press equally on both sides 
in matters that are indifferent to us, 
the safest method is to give up our- 
selves to neither. 

It is with this temper of mind that 
33 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

I consider the subject of witchcraft. 
When I hear the relations that are 
made from all parts of the world, not 
only from Norway and Lapland, from 
the East and West Indies, but from 
every particular nation in Europe, I 
cannot forbear thinking that there is 
such an intercourse and commerce 
with evil spirits as that which we 
express by the name of witchcraft. 
But when I consider that the igno- 
rant and credulous parts of the world 
abound most in these relations, and 
that the persons among us who are 
supposed to engage in such an infernal 
commerce are people of a weak under- 
standing and crazed imagination, and 
at the same time reflect upon the many 
impostures and delusions of this nature 
that have been detected in all ages, I 
34 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

endeavour to suspend my belief, till 
I hear more certain accounts than any 
which have yet come to my knowledge. 
In short, when I consider the question. 
Whether there are such persons in the 
world as those we call witches ? my 
mind is divided between two opposite 
opinions ; or, rather (to speak my 
thoughts freely), I believe in general 
that there is, and has been, such a 
thing as witchcraft ; but at the same 
time can give no credit to any particu- 
lar instance of it. 

I am engaged in this speculation, by 
some occurrences that I met with yes- 
terday, which I shall give my reader an 
account of at large. As I was walking 
with my friend Sir Roger, by the side 
of one of his woods, an old woman 
applied herself to me for my charity. 
35 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

Her dress and figure put me in mind 
of the following description in Otway : 

" In a close lane, as I pursued my journey, 
I spied a wrinkled hag, with age grown 

double, 
Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself. 
Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled 

and red ; 
Cold palsy shook her head : her hands 

seemed withered ; 
And on her crooked shoulders had she 

wrapped 
The tattered remnants of an old stripped 

hanging. 
Which served to keep her carcass from the 

cold. 
So there was nothing of a piece about her, 
Her lower weeds were all o'er coarsely 

patched 
With different coloured rags, black, red, 

white, yellow, 
And seemed to speak variety of wretched- 
ness." 

36 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

As I was musing on this description, 
and comparing it with the object before 
me, the knight told me that this very 
old woman had the reputation of a 
witch all over the country, that her 
lips were observed to be always in 
motion, and that there was not a switch 
about her house which her neighbours 
did not believe had carried her several 
hundreds of miles. If she chanced to 
stumble, they always found sticks or 
straws that lay in the figure of a cross 
before her. If she made any mistake 
at church, and cried Amen in a wrong 
place, they never failed to conclude that 
she was saying her prayers backwards. 
There was not a maid in the parish that 
would take a pin of her, though she 
should offer a bag of money with it. 
She goes by the name of Moll White, 
37 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

and has made the country ring with 
several imaginary exploits which are 
palmed upon her. If the dairy-maid 
does not make her butter to come so 
soon as she would have it, Moll White 
is at the bottom of the churn. If a 
horse sweats in the stable, Moll White 
has been upon his back. If a hare 
makes an unexpected escape from the 
hounds, the huntsman curses Moll 
White. Nay (says Sir Roger), I have 
known the master of the pack, upon 
such an occasion, send one of his ser- 
vants to see if Moll White had been 
out that morning. 

This account raised my curiosity so 
far that I begged my friend Sir Roger 
to go with me into her hovel, which 
stood in a solitary corner under the side 
of the wood. Upon our first entering, 
38 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

Sir Roger winked to me, and pointed 
to something that stood behind the 
door, which, upon looking that way, I 
found to be an old broom-stafF. At the 
same time he whispered me in the ear, 
to take notice of a tabby cat that sat 
in the chimney-corner, which, as the 
knight told me, lay under as bad a 
report as Moll White herself; for, 
besides that Moll is said often to 
accompany her in the same shape, the 
cat is reported to have spoken twice or 
thrice in her life, and to have played 
several pranks above the capacity of an 
ordinary cat. 

I was secretly concerned to see 
human nature in so much wretched- 
ness and disgrace, but at the same time 
could not forbear smiling to hear Sir 
Roger, who is a little puzzled about the 
39 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

old woman, advising her, as a justice of 
peace, to avoid all communication with 
the devil, and never to hurt any of her 
neighbours' cattle. We concluded our 
visit with a bounty, which was very 
acceptable. 

In our return home. Sir Roger told 
me that old Moll had been often 
brought before him for making chil- 
dren spit pins, and giving maids the 
nightmare ; and that the country people 
would be tossing her into a pond, 
and trying experiments with her every 
day, if it was not for him and his 
chaplain. 

I have since found, upon inquiry, 
that Sir Roger was several times stag- 
gered with the reports that had been 
brought him concerning this old 
woman, and would frequently have 
40 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

bound her over to the county ses- 
sions had not his chaplain with much 
ado persuaded him to the contrary. 

I have been the more particular in 
this account, because I hear there is 
scarce a village in England that has not 
a Moll White in it. When an old 
woman begins to dote, and grow 
chargeable to a parish, she is gener- 
ally turned into a witch, and fills the 
whole country with extravagant fan- 
cies, imaginary distempers, and terrify- 
ing dreams. In the meantime the poor 
wretch that is the innocent occasion of 
so many evils begins to be frighted at 
herself, and sometimes confesses secret 
commerces and familiarities that her 
imagination forms in a delirious old age. 
This frequently cuts ofF charity from 
the greatest objects of compassion, and 
41 



-^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

inspires people with a malevolence to- 
ward those poor decrepit parts of our 
species in whom human nature is 
defaced by infirmity and dotage. 



42 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 



CHAPTER V. 

SIR ROGER AT THE ASSIZES 

/\ MAN'S first care should be to 
avoid the reproaches of his own 
heart ; his next, to escape the censures 
of the world : if the last interferes with 
the former, it ought to be entirely neg- 
lected ; but otherwise there cannot be 
a greater satisfaction to an honest 
mind than to see those approbations 
which it gives itself seconded by the 
applauses of the public : a man is more 
sure of his conduct, when the verdict 
43 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

which he passes upon his own beha- 
viour is thus warranted and confirmeti 
by the opinion of all that know him. 

My worthy friend Sir Roger is one ot 
those who is not only at peace within 
himself, but beloved and esteemed by 
all about him. He receives a suit- 
able tribute for his universal benevo- 
lence to mankind, in the returns of 
affection and good-will which are paid 
him by every one that lives within his 
neighbourhood. I lately met with two 
or three odd instances of that general 
respect which is shown to the good old 
knight. He would needs carry Will- 
Wimble and myself with him to the 
country assizes ; as we were upon the 
road. Will. Wimble joined a couple of 
plain men who rid before us, and con- 
versed with them for some time, during 
44 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

which my friend Sir Roger acquainted 
me with their characters. 

The first of them, says he, that hath 
a spaniel by his side, is a yeoman of 
about a hundred pounds a year, an 
honest man : he is just within the game 
act, and qualified to kill an hare or a 
pheasant : he knocks down a dinner 
with his gun twice or thrice a week, 
and by that means lives much cheaper 
than those who have not so good an 
estate as himself. He would be a good 
neighbour if he did not destroy so 
many partridges : in short, he is a very 
sensible man ; shoots flying ; and has 
been several times foreman of the 
petty-jury. 

The other that rides with him is 
Tom Touchy, a fellow famous for 
taking the law of everybody. There 
45 



•^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

is not one in the town where he lives 
that he has not sued at a quarter- 
sessions. The rogue had once the 
impudence to go to law with the 
widow. His head is full of costs, 
damages, and ejectments : he plagued 
a couple of honest gentlemen so long 
for a trespass in breaking one of his 
hedges, till he was forced to sell the 
ground it enclosed to defray the charges 
of the prosecution. His father left 
him fourscore pounds a year ; but he 
has cast and been cast so often that 
he is not now worth thirty. I suppose 
he is going upon the old business of 
the willow-tree. 

As Sir Roger was giving me this ac- 
count of Tom Touchy, Will. Wimble 
and his two companions stopped short 
till we came up to them. After hav- 
46 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

ing paid their respects to Sir Roger, 
Will, told him that Mr. Touchy and he 
must appeal to him upon a dispute 
that arose between them. Will., it 
seems, had been giving his fellow- 
travellers an account of his angling 
one day in such a hole ; when Tom 
Touchy, instead of hearing out his 
story, told him that Mr. such an one, 
if he pleased, might take the law of 
him for fishing in that part of the 
river. My friend Sir Roger heard 
them both, upon a round trot, and 
after having paused some time, told 
them, with an air of a man who 
would not give his judgment rashly, 
that much might be said on both sides. 
They were neither of them dissatisfied 
with the knight's determination, be- 
cause neither of them found himself 
47 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

in the wrong by it ; upon which we 
made the best of our way to the 
assizes. 

The court was sat before Sir Roger 
came, but notwithstanding all the jus- 
tices had taken their places upon the 
bench, they made room for the old 
knight at the head of them ; who, for 
his reputation in the country, took 
occasion to whisper in the judge's ear 
that he was glad his lordship had met 
with so much good weather in his 
circuit. I was listening to the pro- 
ceedings of the court with much at- 
tention, and infinitely pleased with 
that great appearance of solemnity 
which so properly accompanies such 
a public administration of our laws ; 
when, after about an hour's sitting, 
I observed, to my great surprise, in 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

the midst of a trial, that my friend 
Sir Roger was getting up to speak. 
I was in some pain for him, till I 
found he had acquitted himself of 
two or three sentences with a look 
of much business and great intrepidity. 

Upon his first rising, the court was 
hushed, and a general whisper ran 
among the country people that Sir 
Roger was up. The speech he made 
was so little to the purpose, that I 
shall not trouble my readers with an 
account of it ; and I believe was not 
so much designed by the knight him- 
self to inform the court, as to give 
him a figure in my eye, and keep up 
his credit in the country. 

I was highly delighted, when the 
court rose, to see the gentlemen of the 
country gathering about my old friend, 
49 



■^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

and striving who should compliment 
him most ; at the same time that the 
ordinary people gazed upon him at 
a distance, not a little admiring his 
courage, that was not afraid to speak 
to the judge. 

In our return home we met with 
a very odd accident, which I cannot 
forbear relating, because it shows how 
desirous all who know Sir Roger are of 
giving him marks of their esteem. 
When we were arrived upon the verge 
of his estate, we stopped at a little 
inn to rest ourselves and our horses. 
The man of the house had, it seems, 
been formerly a servant in the knight's 
family, and, to do honour to his old 
master, had some time since, unknown 
to Sir Roger, put him up in a sign-post 
before the door ; so that The Knight's 
50 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

Head had hung out upon the road 
about a week before he himself knew 
anything of the matter. As soon as Sir 
Roger was acquainted with it, finding 
that his servant's indiscretion proceeded 
wholly from affection and good-will, he 
only told him that he had made him 
too high a compliment : and when 
the fellow seemed to think that could 
hardly be, added, with a more decisive 
look, that it was too great an honour 
for any man under a duke ; but told 
him, at the same time, that it might 
be altered with a very few touches, 
and that he himself would be at the 
charge of it. Accordingly they got 
a painter by the knight's directions 
to add a pair of whiskers to the face, 
and by a little aggravation of the 
features to change it into the Saracen's 
SI 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

Head. I should not have known this 
story, had not the innkeeper, upon 
Sir Roger's alighting, told him in my 
hearing that his Honour's head was 
brought back last night, with the al- 
terations that he had ordered to be 
made in it. Upon this my friend, 
with his usual cheerfulness, related 
the particulars above-mentioned, and 
ordered the head to be brought into 
the room. I could not forbear dis- 
covering greater expressions of mirth 
than ordinary upon the appearance 
of this monstrous face, under which, 
notwithstanding it was made to frown 
and stare in the most extraordinary 
manner, I could still discover a dis- 
tant resemblance of my old friend. 
Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, de- 
sired me to tell him truly if I thought 
52 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

it possible for people to know him 
in that disguise. I at first kept my 
usual silence j but upon the knight's 
conjuring me to tell him whether it 
was not still more like himself than a 
Saracen, 1 composed my countenance 
in the best manner I could, and re- 
plied, " That much might be said on 
both sides." 

These several adventures, with the 
knight's behaviour in them, gave me 
as pleasant a day as ever I met with 
in any of my travels. 



53 



"^ Sir Roger de Coverley 



CHAPTER VI. 

SIR ROGER AND THE GIPSIES 

/\ S I was yesterday riding out in the 
fields with my friend Sir Roger, 
we saw at a little distance from us a 
troop of gipsies. Upon the first dis- 
covery of them, my friend was in some 
doubt whether he should not exert the 
justice of peace upon such a band of 
lawless vagrants ; but not having his 
clerk with him, who is a necessary 
counsellor on these occasions, and 
fearing that his poultry might fare 
the worse for it, he let the thought 
drop. But at the same time gave me 
54 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

a particular account of the mischiefs 
they do in the country, in stealing 
people's goods, and spoiling their ser- 
vants. " If a stray piece of linen hangs 
upon an hedge (says Sir Roger), they 
are sure to have it ; if a hog loses his 
way in the fields, it is ten to one but 
he becomes their prey : our geese can- 
not live in peace for them. If a man 
prosecutes them with severity, his hen- 
roost is sure to pay for it. They gen- 
erally straggle into these parts about 
this time of the year ; and set the 
heads of our servant-maids so agog for 
husbands, that we do not expect to 
have any business done as it should 
be, whilst they are in the country. 
I have an honest dairymaid who 
crosses their hands with a piece of 
silver every summer ; and never fails 
55 



-^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

being promised the handsomest young 
fellow in the parish for her pains. 
Your friend the butler has been fool 
enough to be seduced by them ; and 
though he is sure to lose a knife, a 
fork, or a spoon, every time his for- 
tune is told him, generally shuts him- 
self up in the pantry with an old 
gipsy for about half an hour once 
in a twelvemonth. Sweethearts are 
the things they live upon, which they 
bestow very plentifully upon all those 
that apply themselves to them. You 
see now and then some handsome 
young jades among them : the sluts 
have very often white teeth and black 
eyes." 

Sir Roger observing that I listened 
with great attention to his account of 
a people who were so entirely new to 
56 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

me, told me that, if I would, they 
should tell us our fortunes. As I was 
very well pleased with the knight's 
proposal, we rid up and communi- 
cated our hands to them. A Cas- 
sandra of the crew, after having 
examined my lines very diligently, 
told me that I loved a pretty maid in 
a corner, that I was a good woman's 
man, with some other particulars which 
I do not think proper to relate. My 
friend Sir Roger alighted from his 
horse, and exposing his palm to two 
or three that stood by him, they 
crumpled it into all shapes, and dili- 
gently scanned every wrinkle that 
could be made in it ; when one of 
them, who was older and more sun- 
burnt than the rest, told him that he 
had a widow in his line of life : upon 
57 



r 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

which the knight cried, " Go, go, you 
are an idle baggage ; " and at the same 
time smiled upon me. The gipsy find- 
ing he was not displeased in his heart, 
told him, after a further inquiry into 
his hand, that his true love was 
constant, and that she should dream 
of him to-night. My old friend cried 
pish, and bid her go on. The gipsy 
told him that he was a bachelor, but 
would not be so long ; and that he 
was dearer to somebody than he 
thought. The knight still repeated 
she was an idle baggage, and bid her 
go on. " Ah, master (says the gipsy), 
that roguish leer of yours makes a 
pretty woman's heart ache ; you ha'n't 
that simper about the mouth for 
nothing." The uncouth gibberish with 
which all this was uttered, like the 
58 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

darkness of an oracle, made us the 
more attentive to it. To be short, 
the knight left the money with her 
that he had crossed her hand with, 
and got up again on his horse. 

As we were riding away, Sir Roger 
told me that he knew several sensible 
people who believed these gipsies now 
and then foretold very strange things ; 
and for half an hour together appeared 
more jocund than ordinary. In the 
height of this good humour, meeting a 
common beggar upon the road who 
was no conjurer, as he went to relieve 
him, he found his pocket was picked ! 
that being a kind of palmistry at which 
this race of vermin are very dexterous. 

I might here entertain my reader 
with historical remarks on this idle, 
profligate people, who infest all the 
59 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

countries of Europe, and live in the 
midst of governments in a kind of 
commonwealth by themselves. But, 
instead of entering into observations 
of this nature, I shall fill the remain- 
ing part of my paper with a story 
which is still fresh in Holland, and 
was printed in one of our monthly 
accounts about twenty years ago. " As 
the Trekschuyt, or Hackney-boat, 
which carries passengers from Leyden 
to Amsterdam, was putting off, a boy 
running along the side of the canal 
desired to be taken in ; which the 
master of the boat refused, because 
the lad had not quite money enough 
to pay the usual fare. An eminent 
merchant being pleased with the looks 
of the boy, and secretly touched with 
compassion toward him, paid the 
60 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

money for him, and ordered him to 
be taken on board. Upon talking 
with him afterward, he found that 
he could speak readily in three or four 
languages, and learned, upon further 
examination, that he had been stolen 
away when he was a child by a gipsy, 
and had rambled ever since with a 
gang of those strollers up and down 
several parts of Europe. It happened 
that the merchant, whose heart seems 
to have inclined towards the boy by a 
secret kind of instinct, had himself 
lost a child some years before. The 
parents, after a long search for him, 
gave him for drowned in one of 
the canals with which that country 
abounds ; and the mother was so af- 
flicted at the loss of a fine boy, who 
was her only son, that she died for 
6i 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

grief of it. Upon laying together all 
particulars, and examining the several 
moles and marks by which the mother 
used to describe the child when he 
was first missing, the boy proved to 
be the son of the merchant, whose 
heart had so unaccountably melted at 
the sight of him. The lad was very 
well pleased to find a father who was 
so rich, and likely to leave him a good 
estate : the father, on the other hand, 
was not a little delighted to see a son 
return to him, whom he had given for 
lost, with such a strength of constitu- 
tion, sharpness of understanding, and 
skill in languages." Here the printed 
story leaves off; but if I may give 
credit to reports, our linguist, having 
received such extraordinary rudiments 
toward a good education, was after- 
62 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

ward trained up in everything that 
becomes a gentleman ; wearing off, 
by little and little, all the vicious 
habits and practices that he had been 
used to in the course of his peregrina- 
tions : nay, it is said that he has since 
been employed in foreign courts upon 
national business, with great reputation 
to himself, and honour to those who 
sent him, and that he has visited 
several countries as a public minister, 
in which he formerly wandered as a 
gipsy. 



63 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 



CHAPTER VII. 

SIR ROGER IN TOWN 

T WAS this morning surprised with 
■^ a great knocking at the door, when 
my landlady's daughter came up to me 
and told me there was a man below 
desired to speak with me. Upon my 
asking her who it was, she told me 
it was a very grave elderly person, but 
that she did not know his name. I 
immediately went down to him, and 
found him to be the coachman of my 
worthy friend Sir Roger de Coverley. 
He told me that his master came to 
town last night, and would be glad to 
64 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

take a turn with me in Grays-Inn 
walks. As I was wondering in my- 
self what had brought Sir Roger to 
town, not having lately received any 
letter from him, he told me that his 
master was come up to get a sight of 
Prince Eugene, and that he desired I 
would immediately meet him. 

I was not a little pleased with the 
curiosity of the old knight, though I 
did not much wonder at it, having 
heard him say more than once, in pri- 
vate discourse, that he looked upon 
Prince Eugenio (for so the knight 
always calls him) to be a greater man 
than Scanderbeg. 

I was no sooner come into Grays- 
Inn walks, but I heard my friend upon 
the terrace hemming twice or thrice to 
himself with great vigour, for he loves 
65 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

to clear his pipes in good air (to make 
use of his own phrase), and is not a 
little pleased with any one who takes 
notice of the strength which he still 
exerts in his morning hems. 

I was touched with a secret joy at 
the sight of the good old man, who 
before he saw me was engaged in con- 
versation with a beggar-man that had 
asked an alms of him. I could hear 
my friend chide him for not finding 
out some work ; but at the same time 
saw him put his hand in his pocket 
and give him sixpence. 

Our salutations were very hearty on 
both sides, consisting of many kind 
shakes of the hand, and several affec- 
tionate looks which we cast upon one 
another. After which the knight told 
me my good friend his chaplain was 
66 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

very well, and much at my service, 
and that the Sunday before he had 
made a most incomparable sermon out 
of Doctor Barrow. " I have left," says 
he, " all my affairs in his hands, and 
being willing to lay an obligation upon 
him, have deposited with him thirty 
marks, to be distributed among his 
poor parishioners." 

He then proceeded to acquaint me 
with the welfare of Will. Wimble. 
Upon which he put his hand into his 
fob, and presented me in his name 
with a tobacco stopper, telling me that 
Will, had been busy all the beginning 
of the winter In turning great quanti- 
ties of them ; and that he made a 
present of one to every gentleman in 
the country who has good principles, 
and smokes. He added that poor 
67 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

Will, was at present under great tribu- 
lation, for that Tom Touchy had taken 
the law of him for cutting some hazel 
sticks out of one of his hedges. 

Among other pieces of news which 
the knight brought from his country- 
seat, he informed me that Moll White 
was dead ; and that about a month after 
her death the wind was so very high 
that it blew down the end of one of 
his barns. " But for my part," says Sir 
Roger, " I do not think that the old 
woman had any hand in it.'* 

He afterward fell into an account 
of the diversions which had passed in 
his house during the holidays, for Sir 
Roger, after the laudable custom of his 
ancestors, always keeps open house at 
Christmas. I learned from him, that 
he had killed eight fat hogs for this 
68 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 



season," that he had dealt about his 
chines very Hberally amongst his neigh- 
bours, and that in particular he had 
sent a string of hog's puddings with a 
pack of cards to every poor family in 
the parish. " I have often thought," 
says Sir Roger, " it happens very well 
that Christmas should fall out in the 
middle of the winter. It is the most 
dead, uncomfortable time of the year, 
when the poor people would suffer 
very much from their poverty and 
cold, if they had not good cheer, 
warm fires, and Christmas gambols 
to support them. I love to rejoice 
their poor hearts at this season, and 
to see the whole village merry in my 
great hall. I allow a double quantity 
of malt to my small beer, and set it a 
running for twelve days to every one 
69 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

that calls for it. I have always a piece 
of cold beef and a mince-pie upon 
the table, and am wonderfully pleased 
to see my tenants pass away a whole 
evening in playing their innocent tricks, 
and smutting one another. Our friend 
Will. Wimble is as merry as any of 
them, and shows a thousand roguish 
tricks upon these occasions." 

I was very much delighted with the 
reflection of my old friend, which 
carried so much goodness in it. He 
then launched out into the praise of 
the late act of Parliament for secur- 
ing the Church of England, and told 
me, with great satisfaction, that he 
believed it already began to take 
effect ; for that a rigid dissenter, who 
chanced to dine at his house on 
Christmas Day, had been observed to 
70 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

eat very plentifully of his plum-por- 
ridge. 

After having despatched all our coun- 
try matters, Sir Roger made several 
inquiries concerning the club, and 
particularly of his old antagonist. Sir 
Andrew Freeport. He asked me, 
with a kind smile, whether Sir Andrew 
had not taken the advantage of his 
absence to vent among them some 
of his republican doctrines ; but soon 
after gathering up his countenance into 
a more than ordinary seriousness, " Tell 
me truly," says he, " don't you think 
Sir Andrew had a hand in the pope's 
procession ? " — but without giving me 
time to answer him, " Well, well," 
says he, " I know you are a wary 
man, and do not care to talk of public 
matters," 

71 



■^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

The knight then asked me if I 
had seen Prince Eugene ; and made 
me promise to get him a stand in 
some convenient place, where he might 
have a full sight of that extraordinary 
man, whose presence does so much 
honour to the British nation. He 
dwelt very long on the praises of this 
great general, and I found that since 
I was with him in the country, he 
had drawn many observations together 
out of his reading In Baker's Chronicle, 
and other authors, who always He In 
his hall window, which very much 
redound to the honour of this prince. 

Having passed away the greatest 
part of the morning in hearing the 
knight's reflections, which were partly 
private and partly political, he asked 
me if I would smoke a pipe with 
72 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

him over a dish of coffee at Squire's. 
As I love the old man, I take a de- 
light in complying with everything that 
is agreeable to him, and accordingly 
waited on him to the coffee-house, 
where his venerable figure drew upon 
us the eyes of the whole room. He had 
no sooner seated himself at the upper 
end of the high table, but he called 
for a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, 
a dish of coffee, a wax candle, and 
the Supplement, with such an air of 
cheerfulness and good humour, that 
all the boys in the coffee-room (who 
seemed to take pleasure in serving 
him) were at once employed on his 
several errands, insomuch that nobody 
else could come at a dish of tea till 
the knight had got all his conveniences 
about him. 

n 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SIR ROGER IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY 

TVyT Y friend Sir Roger de Coverley told 
me, the other night, that he had 
been reading my paper upon Westmin- 
ster Abbey, in which, says he, there are 
a great many ingenious fancies. He 
told me at the same time, that he ob- 
served I had promised another paper 
upon the tombs, and that he should be 
glad to go and see them with me, not 
having visited them since he read his- 
tory. I could not at first imagine how 
this came into the knight's head, till I 
recollected that he had been very busy 
74 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

all last summer upon Baker's Chronicle, 
which he has quoted several times in 
his dispute with Sir Andrew Freeport 
since his last coming to town. Accord- 
ingly I called upon him the next morn- 
ing, that we might go together to the 
Abbey. 

I found the knight under his butler's 
hands, who always shaves him. He was 
no sooner dressed, than he called for 
a glass of the widow Trueby's water, 
which, he told me, he always drank be- 
fore he went abroad. He recommended 
to me a dram of it at the same time, 
with so much heartiness that I could 
not forbear drinking it. As soon as 
I had got it down, I found it very 
unpalatable ; upon which the knight, 
observing that I had made several wry 
faces, told me that he knew I should 
75 



-^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

not like it at first, but that it was 
the best thing in the world against the 
stone or gravel. 

I could have wished, indeed, that 
he had acquainted me with the virtues 
of it sooner ; but it was too late to 
complain, and I knew what he had 
done was out of good-will. Sir Roger 
told me, further, that he looked upon 
it to be very good for a man, whilst 
he stayed in town, to keep off infection, 
and that he got together a quantity 
of it upon the first news of the sick- 
ness being at Dantzic ; when of a 
sudden, turning short to one of his 
servants, who stood behind him, he 
bid him call a hackney-coach, and 
take care it was an elderly man that 
drove it. 

He then resumed his discourse upon 
76 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

Mrs. Trueby's water, telling me that 
the widow Trueby was one who did 
more good than all the doctors and 
apothecaries in the county : that she 
distilled every poppy that grew within 
five miles of her, that she distributed 
her water gratis among all sorts of 
people; to which the knight added 
that she had a very great jointure, and 
that the whole country would fain have 
it a match between him and her ; " and 
truly," says Sir Roger, " if I had not 
been engaged, perhaps I could not have 
done better." 

His discourse was broken off by his 
m.an's telling him he had called a coach. 
Upon our going to it, after having cast 
his eye upon the wheels, he asked the 
coachman if his axletree was good ; 
upon the fellow's telling him he would 

n 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

warrant it, the knight turned to me, 
told me he looked like an honest man, 
and went in without further ceremony. 

We had not gone far, when Sir 
Roger, popping out his head, called 
the coachman down from his box, and, 
upon his presenting himself at the win- 
dow, asked him if he smoked ; as I 
was considering what this would end 
in, he bid him stop by the way at any 
good tobacconist's and take in a roll 
of their best Virginia. Nothing mate- 
rial happened in the remaining part of 
our journey, till we were set down at 
the west end of the Abbey. 

As we went up the body of the 
church, the knight pointed at the 
trophies upon one of the new monu- 
ments, and cried out, " A brave man, 
I warrant him ! " Passing afterward 
78 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

by Sir Cloudsly Shovel, he flung his 
hand that way, and cried, " Sir Cloudsly 
Shovel ! a very gallant man ! " As we 
stood before Busby's tomb, the knight 
uttered himself again, after the same 
manner, " Doctor Busby, a great man ! 
he whipped my grandfather ; a very 
great man ! I should have gone to him 
myself, if I had not been a blockhead ; 
a very great man ! " 

We were immediately conducted into 
the little chapel on the right hand. Sir 
Roger, planting himself at our his- 
torian's elbow, was very attentive to 
everything he said, particularly to the 
account he gave us of the lord who had 
cut off the King of Morocco's head. 
Among several other figures, he was 
very well pleased to see the statesman 
Cecil upon his knees j and, concluding 
79 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

them all to be great men, was con- 
ducted to the figure which represents 
that martyr to good housewifery, who 
died by the prick of a needle. Upon 
our interpreter's telling us that she was 
a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth, 
the knight was very inquisitive into her 
name and family ; and after having re- 
garded her finger for some time, " I 
wonder (says he), that Sir Richard 
Baker has said nothing of her in his 
Chronicle." 

We were then conveyed to the two 
coronation chairs, where my old friend, 
after having heard that the stone under- 
neath the most ancient of them, which 
was brought from Scotland, was called 
Jacob's Pillow, sat himself down in the 
chair ; and, looking like the figure of an 
old Gothic king, asked our interpreter 
80 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

what authority they had to say that 
Jacob had ever been in Scotland ? 
The fellow, instead of returning him 
an answer, told him that he hoped his 
Honour would pay his forfeit. I could 
observe Sir Roger a little ruffled upon 
being thus trepanned ; but our guide 
not insisting upon his demand, the 
knight soon recovered his good hu- 
mour, and whispered in my ear that 
if Will. Wimble were with us, and 
saw those two chairs, it would go hard 
but he would get a tobacco-stopper out 
of one or tother of them. 

Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his 
hand upon Edward the Third's sword, 
and, leaning upon the pummel of it, 
gave us the whole history of the Black 
Prince ; concluding that, in Sir Richard 
Baker's opinion, Edward the Third was 
8i 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

one of the greatest princes that ever 
sat upon the English throne. 

We were then shown Edward the 
Confessor's tomb ; upon which Sir 
Roger acquainted us that he was the 
first that touched for the Evil ; and 
afterward Henry the Fourth's, upon 
which he shook his head, and told us 
there was fine reading of the casualties 
of that reign. 

Our conductor then pointed to that 
monument where there is the figure of 
one of our English kings without a 
head ; and upon giving us to know 
that the head, which was of beaten sil- 
ver, had been stolen away several years 
since : " Some Whig, I'll warrant you, 
(says Sir Roger) ; you ought to lock up 
your kings better ; they will carry off 
the body, too, if you do not take care." 
82 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

The glorious names of Henry the 
Fifth and Queen Elizabeth gave the 
knight great opportunities of shining, 
and of doing justice to Sir Richard 
Baker, who, as our knight observed 
with some surprise, had a great many- 
kings in him, whose monuments he had 
not seen in the Abbey. 

For my own part, I could not but 
be pleased to see the knight show such 
an honest passion for the glory of his 
country, and such a respectful gratitude 
to the memory of its princes. 

I must not omit that the benevo- 
lence of my good old friend, which 
flows out toward every one he con- 
verses with, made him very kind to our 
interpreter, whom he looked upon as an 
extraordinary man ; for which reason 
he shook him by the hand at parting, 
83 



-^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

telling him that he should be very glad 
to see him at his lodgings in Norfolk- 
buildings, and talk over these matters 
with him more at leisure. 



84 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 



CHAPTER IX. 

SIR ROGER AT THE PLAY 

"\yTY friend Sir Roger de Coverley, 
when we last met together at the 
club, told me that he had a great mind 
to see the new tragedy with me, assur- 
ing me at the same time, that he had 
not been at a play these twenty years. 
The last I saw, said Sir Roger, was the 
Committee, which I should not have 
gone to neither, had not I been told 
beforehand that It was a good Church 
of England comedy. He then pro- 
ceeded to inquire of me who this Dis- 
tressed Mother was ; and upon hearing 
8S 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

that she was Hector's widow, he told 
me that her husband was a brave man, 
and that when he was a schoolboy he 
had read his life at the end of the dic- 
tionary. My friend asked me, in the 
next place, if there would not be some 
danger in coming home late, in case 
the Mohocks should be abroad. " I 
assure you (says he), I thought I had 
fallen into their hands last night ; for 
I observed two or three lusty black 
men that followed me half-way up 
Fleet Street, and mended their pace 
behind me, in proportion as I put on 
to go away from them. You must 
know (continued the knight, with a 
smile), I fancied they had a mind to 
hunt me : for I remember an honest 
gentleman in my neighbourhood, who 
was served such a trick in King Charles 
86 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

the Second's time ; for which reason he 
has not ventured himself in town ever 
since. I might have shown them very 
good sport, had this been their design ; 
for as I am an old fox-hunter, I should 
have turned and dodged, and have 
played them a thousand tricks they had 
never seen in their lives before.'* Sir 
Roger added that if these gentlemen 
had any such intention, they did not 
succeed very well in it ; " for I threw 
them out (says he) at the end of Nor- 
folk Street, where I doubled the corner, 
and got shelter in my lodgings before 
they could imagine what was become 
of me. However (says the knight), 
if Captain Sentry will make one with us 
to-morrow night, and if you will both 
of you call on me about four o'clock, 
that we may be at the house before it 
87 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

is full, I will have my own coach in 
readiness to attend you, for John tells 
me he has got the fore-wheels mended." 
The captain, who did not fail to 
meet me there at the appointed hour, 
bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for that he 
had put on the same sword which he 
had made use of at the battle of Steen- 
kirk. Sir Roger's servants, and among 
the rest my old friend the butler, had, 
I found, provided themselves with good 
oaken plants, to attend their master 
upon this occasion. When we had 
placed him in his coach, with myself 
at his left hand, the captain before him, 
and his butler at the head of his foot- 
men in the rear, we convoyed him in 
safety to the playhouse ; where, after 
having marched up the entry in good 
order, the captain and I went in with 
88 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

him, and seated him betwixt us in the 
pit. As soon as the house was full, 
and the candles lighted, my old friend 
stood up and looked about him with 
that pleasure which a mind seasoned 
with humanity naturally feels in itself, 
at the sight of a multitude of people 
who seemed pleased with one another, 
and partake of the same common enter- 
tainment. I could not but fancy to 
myself, as the old man stood up in the 
middle of the pit, that he made a very 
proper centre to a tragic audience. 
Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, the 
knight told me that he did not be- 
lieve the King of France himself had 
a better strut. I was, indeed, very 
attentive to my old friend's remarks, 
because I looked upon them as a piece 
of natural criticism, and was well 
89 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

pleased to hear him, at the conclu- 
sion of almost every scene, telling me 
that he could not imagine how the 
play would end. One while he ap- 
peared much concerned about Androm- 
ache ; and a little while after as much 
for Hermione : and was extremely 
puzzled to think what would become 
of Pyrrhus. 

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's 
obstinate refusal to her lover's impor- 
tunities, he whispered me in the ear 
that he was sure she would never have 
him ; to which he added, with a more 
than ordinary vehemence, you cannot 
imagine, sir, what it is to have to do 
with a widow. Upon Pyrrhus, his 
threatening afterward to leave her, 
the knight shook his head and muttered 
to himself. Ay, do, if you can. This 
90 



Sir Roger de Cover ley ^ 

part dwelt so much upon my friend's 
imagination that at the close of the 
third act, as I was thinking of some- 
thing else, he whispered in my ear, 
" These widows, sir, are the most per- 
verse creatures in the world. But pray 
(says he), you that are a critic, is this 
play according to your dramatic rules, 
as you call them ? Should your peo- 
ple in tragedy always talk to be under- 
stood ? Why, there is not a single 
sentence in this play that I do not 
know the meaning of." 

The fourth act very luckily began 
before I had time to give the old 
gentleman an answer ; " Well (says 
the knight, sitting down with great 
satisfaction), I suppose we are now 
to see Hector's ghost." He then re- 
newed his attention, and, from time 
91 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

to time, fell a-p raising the widow. He 
made, indeed, a little mistake as to one 
of her pages, whom, at his first enter- 
ing, he took for Astyanax ; but he 
quickly set himself right in that par- 
ticular, though, at the same time, he 
owned he should have been very glad 
to have seen the little boy, " who," 
says he, " must needs be a very fine 
child, by the account that is given of 
him." Upon Hermione's going off 
with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audi- 
ence gave a loud clap ; to which Sir 
Roger added, " On my word, a notable 
young baggage ! " 

As there was a very remarkable 
silence and stillness in the audience 
during the whole action, it was natural 
for them to take the opportunity of the 
intervals between the acts to express 
92 



Sir Roger de Coverley v# 

their opinion of the players, and of 
their respective parts. Sir Roger, hear- 
ing a cluster of them praise Orestes, 
struck in with them, and told them 
that he thought his friend Pylades 
was a very sensible man ; as they 
were afterward applauding Pyrrhus, 
Sir Roger put in, a second time, 
" And let me tell you (says he), 
though he speaks but little, I like the 
old fellow in whiskers as well as any 
of them." Captain Sentry, seeing two 
or three wags, who sat near us, lean 
with an attentive ear toward Sir Roger, 
and fearing lest they should smoke the 
knight, plucked him by the elbow, and 
whispered something in his ear that 
lasted till the opening of the fifth act. 
The knight was wonderfully attentive 
to the account which Orestes gives of 
93 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

Pyrrhus, his death, and at the conclu- 
sion of it told me it was such a bloody 
piece of work, that he was glad it was 
not done upon the stage. Seeing, after- 
ward, Orestes in his raving fit, he grew 
more than ordinary serious, and took 
occasion to moralise (in his way) upon 
an evil conscience, adding that " Ores- 
tes, in his madness, looked as if he saw 
something." 

As we were the first that came into 
the house, so we were the last that 
went out of it ; being resolved to have 
a clear passage for our old friend, whom 
we did not care to venture among the 
justling of the crowd. Sir Roger went 
out fully satisfied with his entertain- 
ment, and we guarded him to his 
lodgings in the same manner that we 
brought him to the playhouse j being 
94 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

highly pleased, for my own part, not 
only with the performance of the ex- 
cellent piece which had been presented, 
but with the satisfaction which it had 
given to the good old man. 



95 



■^ 



Sir Roger de Coverley 



CHAPTER X. 

SIR ROGER AT VAUXHALL 

/\ S I was sitting in my chamber, and 
thinking on a subject for my next 
Spectator, I heard two or three irregu- 
lar bounces at my landlady's door, and 
upon the opening of it, a loud cheerful 
voice inquiring whether the philoso- 
pher was at home. The child who 
went to the door answered, very in- 
nocently, that he did not lodge there. 
I immediately recollected that it was 
my good friend Sir Roger's voice : and 
that I had promised to go with him on 
the water to Spring Garden, in case it 
96 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

proved a good evening. The knight 
put me in mind of my promise from 
the staircase, but told me that if I 
was speculating, he would stay below 
till I had done. Upon my coming 
down, I found all the children of the 
family got about my old friend, and 
my landlady herself, who is a notable 
prating gossip, engaged in a conference 
with him ; being mightily pleased with 
his stroking her little boy upon the 
head, and bidding him be a good child, 
and mind his book. 

We were no sooner come to the 
Temple stairs, but we were surrounded 
with a crowd of watermen, offering 
their respective services. Sir Roger, 
after having looked about him very 
attentively, spied one with a wooden 
leg, and immediately gave him orders 
97 



■^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

to get his boat ready. As we were 
walking toward it, " You must know 
(says Sir Roger), I never make use of 
anybody to row me that has not either 
lost a leg or an arm. I would rather 
bate him a few strokes of his oar, than 
not employ an honest man that has 
been wounded in the Queen's service. 
If I was a lord or a bishop, and kept a 
barge, I would not put a fellow in my 
livery that had not a wooden leg." 

My old friend, after having seated 
himself, and trimmed the boat with 
his coachman, who, being a very sober 
man, always serves for ballast on these 
occasions, we made the best of our 
way for Fox-hall. Sir Roger obliged 
the waterman to give us the history 
of his right leg, and hearing that he 
had left it at La Hogue, with many 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

particulars which passed in that glori- 
ous action, the knight in the triumph 
of his heart made several reflections 
on the greatness of the British nation ; 
as, that one Englishman could beat 
three Frenchmen ; that we could never 
be in danger of popery so long as we 
took care of our fleet ; that the Thames 
was the noblest river in Europe ; that 
London bridge was a greater piece of 
work than any other of the seven 
wonders of the world ; with many 
other honest prejudices which natur- 
ally cleave to the heart of a true Eng- 
lishman. 

After some short pause, the old 
knight, turning about his head twice 
or thrice to take a survey of this great 
metropolis, bid me observe how thick 
the city was set with churches, and 

LofL. 99 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

that there was scarce a single steeple 
on this side Temple Bar. " A most 
heathenish sight ! (says Sir Roger) : 
There is no religion at this end of the 
town. The fifty new churches will 
very much mend the prospect ; but 
church work is slow, church work is 
slow ! " 

I do not remember I have anywhere 
mentioned in Sir Roger's character his 
custom of saluting everybody that 
passes by him with a good morrow or 
a good night. This the old man does 
out of the overflowings of humanity, 
though at the same time it renders him 
so popular among all his country neigh- 
bours, that it is thought to have gone 
a good way in making him once or 
twice knight of the shire. He cannot 
forbear this exercise of benevolence 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

even in town, when he meets with any 
one in his morning or evening walk. 
It broke from him to several boats 
that passed by us upon the water j but 
to the knight's great surprise, as he 
gave the good night to two or three 
young fellows a little before our land- 
ing, one of them, instead of returning 
the civility, asked us what queer old 
put we had in the boat, and whether 
he was not ashamed to go a-wenching 
at his years ? with a great deal of 
the like Thames ribaldry. Sir Roger 
seemed a little shocked at first, but at 
length assuming a face of magistracy, 
told us, "that if he were a Middlesex 
justice, he would make such vagrants 
know that her Majesty's subjects were 
no more to be abused by water than by 
land." 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

We were now arrived at Spring 
Garden, which is exquisitely pleasant 
at this time of year. When I con- 
sidered the fragrancy of the walks and 
bowers, with the choirs of birds that 
sung upon the trees, and the loose tribe 
of people that walked under their 
shades, I could not but look upon the 
place as a kind of Mahometan paradise. 
Sir Roger told me it put him in mind 
of a little coppice by his house in the 
country, which his chaplain used to call 
an aviary of nightingales. " You must 
understand (says the knight), there is 
nothing in the world that pleases a 
man in love so much as your nightin- 
gale. Ah, Mr. Spectator ! the many 
moonlight nights that I have walked 
by myself, and thought on the widow 
by the music of the nightingale ! " He 



Sir Roger de Coverley ^ 

here fetched a deep sigh, and was fall- 
ing into a fit of musing, when a mask, 
who came behind him, gave him a 
gentle tap upon the shoulder, and 
asked him if he would drink a bottle 
of mead with her ? But the knight, 
being startled at so unexpected a famil- 
iarity, and displeased to be interrupted 
in his thoughts of the widow, told her, 
" She was a wanton baggage," and bid 
her go about her business. 

We concluded our walk with a glass 
of Burton ale, and a slice of hung beef. 
When we had done eating ourselves, 
the knight called a waiter to him, and 
bid him carry the remainder to a water- 
man that had but one leg. I per- 
ceived the fellow stared upon him at 
the oddness of the message, and was 
going to be saucy, upon which I rati- 
103 



^ Sir Roger de Coverley 

fied the knight's commands with a 
peremptory look. 

As we were going out of the garden, 
my old friend, thinking himself obliged, 
as a member of the Quorum, to ani- 
madvert upon the morals of the place, 
told the mistress of the house, who sat 
at the bar, " that he should be a better 
customer to her garden, if there were 
more nightingales and fewer strum- 
pets." 



THE END. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




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